I slept late on purpose. Then I went forward through the day without once consulting my list of things to do. I accomplished one thing, which was attending a church broadcast with my two daughters. We attended by curling up on the couch in my office and watching over the internet. All the rest of the day I did nothing productive. I feel better after the end of this day than I have for most of the week. I am now able to picture how I can enjoy having things to do. Vacation next week may restore me to normal. My mind will become quiet enough that I can use it to write words.
I spent some time today talking on the phone with a friend. She helped me sort my thoughts, which was good, because things had gotten so tangled that I couldn’t begin to write–my preferred brain sorting method. One of the things we talked about was the slipperiness of the human mind and its ability to believe contrary things simultaneously. Mine in particular seems to be pinging back and forth between believing that things are dire and that I’m just imagining all the crisis. I also feel guilty. The guilt is attractive because if I caused the problem, then I can fix it. At the same time I know it is not really mine to fix, nor am I at fault. Humans are social animals. We’re always looking around at others to see what is normal and adjust our behavior. This is not a great strategy when we’re struggling with hard emotions, because one of two things will happen. Either we’ll see someone worse off who is handling things better, and feel like we’re over reacting. Or we’ll see someone who is better off and complaining more and feel justified. When it comes to pain, we feel what we feel, whether or not those feels are proportional to the event.
The best gift today has given me is the ability to see the good things from the past week. Even some of the hard things were good, or will be good eventually. Some of the not-so-hard ones are: This week Kiki got to try on the amazing prom dress she gets to borrow. Patch’s teacher came up to me and told me that the troubles he was having at school have evaporated almost completely. Link decided to spend time teaching Patch how to play a video game so that the two of them can play together. Howard accomplished all of his work so he feels relaxed enough for vacation. Gleek rediscovered playing in the back yard with her friends. The weather was lovely. We’ve collected most of the Kickstarter pledge information so I’ll be able to ship. Howard was nominated for Hugo awards again this year. A couple of letters came in the mail. Several letters came via email. I have pieces of multiple blog posts which will be very worthwhile when I have time to properly assemble them. I got to go with Patch to meet his teacher for next year. I got to go see Patch’s wax museum event where he dressed up and danced a Virginia reel with a girl in his class.
This week was full of good things. Resting today let me see them again.